


Into The Fire

by DarkSparrow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Maybe It Will Get Better, Misery, Sad, Team Free Will, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-01-24 23:10:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1620335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkSparrow/pseuds/DarkSparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean kills Cas. Yeah. And Sam has to pick up the pieces. Yet Dean seems to think it might still turn out okay, because Cas always comes back, right? RIGHT? </p><p>(maybe he is right?)</p><p>SERIOUS WARNING: BRUTAL DEATH SCENE and it's going to be sad for many chapters before it gets better. It will get better though.</p><p>SECOND WARNING: A few more chapters are ready now but the bulk will not be written until summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_A/N - Okay folks. This is gonna be grim. SERIOUS WARNING: THIS IS VERY DISTURBING and there is very likely something wrong with me that I even thought of it, let alone wrote it. It is chapter 1 of a fully plotted and half-written story (about 20ch total) that I wrote at the very beginning of S9, but the story starts with such a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE SCENE that I have been afraid to post it. But, given recent episodes in S9 it seems Dean is going so dark that this TERRIBLE TERRIBLE SCENE is actually starting to seem kind of relevant to the actual show, so I made an alt account just to post this 1 chapter and see if there is actually any interest in me writing out the rest of the story._

_WARNING: TORTURE, DEATH, MISERY, INSANITY, GRIEF, all that fun stuff._

THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE! STOP HERE!

* * *

It should have been just an ordinary hunt.

It should have been easy. Just another demon. Dean had been certain it would be easy. The three of them - Sam, Dean, and also Cas these days, now that Metatron had stripped him of his grace - had only been working a simple case. A few deaths in a small town; nothing unusual. Except that the deaths were a bit grisly. And pretty sad - they'd all involved people who'd seemed to snap suddenly and go practically serial-killer on their families. Pretty soon Cas had diagnosed it as some kind of demon (what kind, he wasn't sure), and they'd finally managed to track it down to the old Cleveland dockyards along the long Lake Erie shoreline of Ohio. It didn't take all that much work to get the demon cornered, and by nightfall it had been clear the demon had run to earth somewhere in a clump of five long old warehouses by the foggy Lake Erie shore. Likely in the fifth warehouse, Dean thought.

Dean had been planning on Cas and him going in to gank the demon, while Sam stayed outside patrolling the other warehouses and watching for any other arrivals. Cas had helped Dean on the end-stage combat stuff with several hunts recently - fairly ably, actually. Even despite the total lack of angelic powers. Dean knew Cas's transition to humanity must have been rough, but he'd actually turned out to be a pretty scrappy fighter. He was actually turning into sort of a decent human. A little weird to live with, of course — recently Dean had been giving Castiel everlovin' hell over Cas's inexplicable fondness for sappy John Denver songs — but as a fighter he'd actually turned out to be pretty great to have at your back. He was quick, he had good reflexes, and he didn't scare easy. And though he had little sense of how to handle a gun, it had quickly become clear that Cas with any kind of blade in his hand was a force to be reckoned with.

So, Dean and Cas would head in, and Sam would just keep watch outside. Sam, of course, was none too happy with this plan, but he was only just barely back on his feet after his long illness from the trials and Dean just plain ordered him to stay outside, and the half-heartedness of Sam's complaints only convinced Dean even more that he was correct.

But Cas seemed uneasy.

They'd just arrived at the group of warehouses where Dean was pretty sure the demon was holed up. Dean and Sam were standing at the Impala's trunk, still arguing about whether not Sam was ready for combat. But meanwhile Cas had drifted slightly away from the car, staring out into the fog.

Cas broke into their argument with, "I'm certain that something's wrong." Which he'd said at least three times already.

Dean sighed.

"Cas, you've got to explain what you mean. What's wrong exactly?" asked Sam.

"I don't know," said Cas. He turned in a little circle, looking into the wispy fog. Several of the huge warehouses were visible, standing by an old rusted railway line, the furthest ones fading into the fog.

Dean waited a few more moments to see if Cas was going to say anything more, but Cas couldn't seem to explain the ill-defined sense of dread that seemed to be haunting him.  _Well, he's probably just a little nervous again from missing all his usual powers, right?_ thought Dean.  _This is actually the first demon he's gone up against as a just-plain-human. Probably it's just getting to him._

"C'mon, Cas," said Dean, walking over and clapping him on the shoulder. "You can handle it. Quick in-and-out. Demons aren't so bad. Just stay with me and you'll be fine." Cas gave him a grim look. Dean grinned at him, for moral support, checked his pistol and shotgun one more time, and started walking over to the main warehouse. A moment later Cas caught up, walking by Dean's side. Dean peeked over his shoulder to see Sam starting to walk the long gravel strip along the other warehouses, looking for anything else unusual. Everything was in place. It was all gonna be fine.

They checked a long, empty hallway, went through a little door and then found themselves in a vast open space. Huge windows overhead, most of them broken, let in just enough of the foggy glow of the streetlights to get a sense of the space: a huge, cavernous work area, great big wooden pillars holding up the roof, dilapidated piles of equipment and a few abandoned wooden pallets heaped against the walls.

The light didn't quite reach the dark corners and Dean had just started to say "Okay, Cas, here's how you check a room," when it jumped them.

It'd been hiding behind the door and Dean didn't even get a clear view of it at first, just a jumbled impression of a huge horrid dark spidery thing, piling right into him. It was right on Dean and clamped all over his torso, pinning his arms to his sides and flinging him to the floor, before he could even bring his demon-blade up. But Cas flew into action and actually jumped right on the thing. There was a bewildering and fairly terrifying scuffle, all three of them rolling around for a moment, before Cas managed to slice one of its black, twisted limbs right off. It howled and let go of Dean, and Dean finally got the demon-blade up and plunged it straight into the thing's chest.

Dean scuttled back on his hands and knees, gasping, while Cas immediately stepping in front of him to guard him. They both watched the spider-thing as it writhed for a moment, glowing with a strange purple light, and collapsed, dead.

Dean said, "Hey, that didn't go so bad, huh?" He grabbed his shotgun and pistol - he'd dropped them when he'd gotten jumped - and scratched an itch on his arm. "So Cas, you feel any better now?"

Cas gave him a distinctly uneasy look, his mouth pressed into a tight line. "Not really," he said. "Actually the sensation is getting much worse. "

"You getting any clearer idea what it is that's bugging you?" said Dean, scratching his arm again.

Cas looked around. "Something very bad coming." He looked up at the high ceiling, at the great wooden pillars all around them, and the shattered skylights high overhead, and turned in a little circle to look at all the walls. "Dean, I'm really getting quite worried. I think something bad is going to happen."

Cas began to pace around the perimeter of the room, inspecting all the corners and looking carefully behind the heaps of wooden pallets.

Dean's arm was really itching quite a lot. He looked down and saw he had four long bloody scrapes across his elbow. Claw marks?

Tooth scrapes, maybe?

Cas was still checking through the far corners of the rooms, saying, "Dean, I'm starting to suspect this may be some sort of premonition."

Dean sighed to himself. There Cas went again... Cas and his squirrelly theories. Which no doubt were wrong, since Cas was always completely wrong about everything.

Then Cas started just  _going on and on_ about premonitions and how angels sometimes got a sense of something bad approaching, some tedious nerdy explanation about their sense of time stretching slightly into the future, and Dean found he was getting more and more irritated just at the sound of Cas's voice. He finally snapped, "Would you just shut the hell up?"

Cas turned and looked at him. Dean was standing by the door, clutching his arm; Cas was at the far corner of the room, facing Dean now, frowning.

That idiot  _frown_  Cas practically always had — it was just  _so fucking irritating._ Dean said, "I don't know why I even brought you along. You always get everything wrong. You've betrayed us so many damn times already, I don't know why I even thought I could trust you for even a second."

"Dean..." said Cas, standing very still, scanning Dean from head to foot. Dean scratched his arm again, and Cas narrowed his eyes and said, "What's wrong with your arm?"

"What the fuck do you care?" Dean snapped. "I scratch my arm and suddenly you're all worried about it? When, what about all those times I really seriously needed your help, more than just a damn scratched arm, and you couldn't even be bothered to answer me?"

Cas blinked at him, and something changed in his posture; Dean could almost see him slide into that hyper-aware soldier mode that Cas had. Cas started to stroll ever-so-casually around the side of the room, toward the door (which was behind Dean), but Dean moved to block him, saying, "Do you even remember how many times I tried to pray to you and you never even  _answered_? You never even bothered to tell me if you even heard? You remember that _entire solid year_ when I thought Sam was being tortured out of his mind in Hell and you just fucking  _disappeared_? You never answered me even one damn time? And then when you did finally show up it was only 'cause we'd found stuff you needed? And then you lied like hell to us that whole year. YOU. FUCKING.  _LIED TO ME._  Oh wait, there was another year like that too, wasn't there? The very next year! When you just went all amnesic and insane and then you went off following goddam bees around when I REALLY COULD HAVE USED YOUR HELP. Oh wait - then there was the next year too! In Purgatory! WHEN YOU ABANDONED ME. And then the next year too. And now I've got some little scrape on my arm and suddenly you're paying attention?"

Cas was standing very still now, staring at Dean. 

"Dean, were you bitten?" asked Cas quietly.

Cas had that fucking idiotic squint again.

"Would you stop tilting your head like a goddam  _dog_ , Cas, you look like a  _complete fucking moron_  when you do that," snapped Dean. He wasn't done reviewing all Cas's crimes, and he said, "How many sins have you piled up now? Oh wait. Let me list them." Dean started to tick off a list on his fingers. "Let's see now. One, lying to us about Crowley and Raphael and what you were doing for an entire friggin' year."

"Dean, listen to me," Cas said, tense and urgent, starting to sidle around the edge of the room again, "You've been bitten. You're feeling hatred, aren't you? Directed at me? But it's not real, Dean—"

"It's as real as it gets, Cas, and the reason I'm feeling hatred is because  _you deserve to be hated_ , Cas," said Dean, talking right over Cas. Dean was unloading his shotgun as he spoke. Dumping the salt cartridges and swapping them out for ones with real buckshot. "TWO," went on Dean, "You decided to try become GOD? Seriously? For real? How many sins does that even count as? And then you murdered I don't know how many people."

"Dean," broke in Castiel, " _Please_ listen to me. You've been bitten - you've been infected. I know now what sort of demon that was - the venom is distorting your thoughts. It's turning you into the worst version of yourself, into the demon you would have become in Hell. Dean, it's turning you back into a torturer of Hell. I can see it in your eyes, Dean, please—"

"Don't  _fucking change the subject_ , Cas," said Dean. He had the shotgun trained right at Cas now, who was backing away now, across the room. Cas tried to turn, and Dean fired to his side. " _Don't you fucking move or I'll shoot your legs off right now._ Are you trying to deny you have sinned?"

"No," said Castiel, ashen now, standing very still, his voice very soft. "I don't deny any of it, and I have paid. And clearly I continue to pay. But this isn't  _you_ , Dean. You've got to try to remember who you really are—" Cas forgot himself and took one step forward, and Dean fired the pistol, over his head this time, and Cas froze once again.

Dean said, slowly, "One more step, Cas.  _One_  more step and I kill you where you stand. Do not move. I'm not done. I'm not even halfway through." Dean pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped out a quick message to Sam. "Okay, that takes care of Sam," he said a moment later, returning the phone to his pocket. "No cavalry this time, Cas. Let's see, where was I, Castiel? Angel of the Lord? Soldier of God? Where was I now? I was at sin number three, was I not? THREE!  _You turned the Leviathans loose!_ And just how many people did THEY kill? Like, oh, for example, Bobby?"

It was all coming clear in Dean's mind now. It was all so crystal clear. How much Cas had sinned, how much he'd done wrong, how many awful mistakes he'd made, and, most of all,  _how much Cas needed to suffer_. Cas needed to be  _punished_.

Dean began advancing on Cas slowly.

"Dean, please—" whispered Cas. "All of that—Raphael and my, my, my failure as a god, and the Leviathans—I truly was trying to save the world—Raphael truly was going to destroy it, he truly would have. I didn't know the Purgatory souls would take me over like that—I truly didn't know how it would change me—there was no other way, Raphael truly would have destroyed the entire planet, and, please, Dean, you  _know_  how I regret what I did, you _know_ I have tried to repent—you must know that—"

"FOUR!" interrupted Dean. "If I can go personal for just one moment here, just to point out that you don't even take care of your very, very, very few friends, because, four, you FUCKING ABANDONED ME in Purgatory! Then, FIVE, oh, do you happen to remember that one time you turned into a HOMICIDAL ROBOT and tried to kill me?" Dean's phone vibrated and he glanced at it quickly. Sam was obediently heading to an address fifteen miles away that Dean had given him. "Sam's gone, by the way."

Cas just gazed at him.

"Then, SIX, you stole the tablet and you didn't come to me for help and you ignored all my advice and you screwed up AGAIN with Metatron, didn't you, and it is because of YOU, because of YOU, Castiel, angel of the Lord, soldier of God, that all those people have been killed by angels this year. All the hundreds of vessels they've exploded by now... all the hosts they've killed. And how many more deaths is that on your conscience?"

Dean began to walk toward Castiel, slowly, one step at a time, his pistol in one hand, the shotgun in the other. "That is six times you've sinned, Castiel, you so-called servant of Heaven; and damned serious sins every one of them, and every one of them caused so much death and suffering. And if only stupidity counted as a sin too, well, then, you'd be up in the thousands of sins, not just six, wouldn't you. Okay, Castiel, now let's weigh all that up against the one and only year that you really helped us, though I guess I could actually count all that as a sin too because  _you messed up God's plan_. Let's just count all that Apocalypse stuff as sin number seven, shall we?

Cas suddenly had his angel-blade in his hand. But he still wasn't moving.

"What's the matter, Castiel?' said Dean. "You could stab me in the chest with that angel-blade with one throw, couldn't you? Why are you hesitating?"

Cas flipped the blade around in his hand, staring at Dean. "Dean," he said, "This isn't you."

"You're thinking about it, aren't you," said Dean, taking another step closer, and another. They were only about ten feet apart now. "You're thinking about throwing the blade. Burying it right in my heart. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm  _wide_  open." He moved his hands apart, holding the pistol and shotgun well away from each other, giving Castiel an easy target. "Just one quick throw and I'll be dead too. And that'll be just one more death on your conscience, won't it. Just one more little death. What's one among thousands? What's stopping you?"

A pause. Dean stood there, his arms spread, smiling. Cas was still fidgeting with his blade.

"Dean, I know you're in there," said Cas at last. "I know you can hear me."

"Oh, that's cute," Dean said, laughing, for Cas was parroting the phrases that Dean had used once, to snap Castiel out of his homicidal-robot trance. "Just one problem with that strategy, Cas, this is  _actually is me_. You can't snap me out of a trance  _because I'm not in a trance_ , Cas."

Cas opened his mouth to say something else, but Dean found that he wasn't interested at all in whatever stupid prattly theories Cas would spout out. It was time to get down to business.

Cas had sinned, and he needed to be punished, and Dean was just the one to do it.

He didn't want to kill Cas immediately (that wouldn't be enough punishment) so instead he shot Cas in the leg.

* * *

Dean never was sure later how long it had all lasted. Cas had actually managed to fight for a while at first, even despite his shattered leg. They'd ended up scuffling on the ground for a surprisingly long time, given that Dean was heavier and taller and had a longer reach, which should have given him a substantial advantage. But Cas had millennia of experience, and turned out to have a surprisingly high pain threshold, and also turned out to be just full of unfair squirrelly little tricks. Actually Cas would probably have won, even despite his leg, except for the fatal flaw that he was still too goddam wimpy or weak-willed or whatever to kill Dean when he had the chance. No less than  _four_  times Cas had a solid chance to take Dean out with his blade, and every time he froze up like (Dean thought) the fucking idiotic wimp that he was. He hesitated even to just wound Dean, which was completely ridiculous. And the whole time Cas was keeping up that godawful ridiculous chatter about Dean being "infected", whining endlessly about it, gasping out sappy little phrases like "Wake up, Dean! You've got to snap out of this - I know you can hear me - don't do this! It'll wear off in a few hours, you just have to wait a few hours, please,  _please_!"

The scuffle got messy and bloody, both of them rolling around in the corner. Dean finally managed to grab hold of Cas's mangled leg and twist it brutally. Cas screamed, and his hold on Dean finally wavered. Dean got a chokehold on him and choked Cas into unconsciousness, and it was a hell of a relief when Cas at last SHUT UP.

Dean could have killed him right then, and almost did in fact.

But of course, Cas still needed to be punished.

Back when Dean had been Alistair's brightest new protege, back in Hell, when Dean had been Alistair's assistant torturer and well on his way to becoming a demon, Alistair had instructed him in some of the finer nuances of torture. There were quite a lot of interesting little psychological details that one could add. For example: if the subject was religious, you could set up the torture scene in a way that mimicked something about the religion. This often added an layer of emotional suffering that gave the whole job just that little additional zing.

Dean considered Castiel to be more-or-less Christian (maybe not exactly, since Cas was older than that; but Cas had hinted a few times that he'd met Jesus personally, and that had to count, right?).

So Dean crucified him.

* * *

There wasn't exactly a cross and nails handy but Dean made do. He tore apart one of the old wooden pallets nearby till he found a sturdy good-sized plank, pulled some nails out of the pallets too, and hammered the plank horizontally onto one of the vertical wooden pillars, about seven feet up. Then he managed to get Cas strung up by a waist rope upright against the vertical pillar. It was difficult, and Cas kept coming half awake and Dean kept having to choke him out again, but Dean kept at it and finally got him up there, hauling hard on the waist ropes till Cas's feet were dangling a foot or two off the floor.

He tied Cas's feet in place, and tied Cas's arms to the horizontal piece. Cas was still mostly suspended from the rope around his waist, but his arms and legs were in the right position now.

Then Dean waited for the angel to wake.

He could no longer remember the angel's name — had it started with a C, perhaps? No matter; it was clear in Dean's mind that this angel, whoever he was, had sinned terribly and must punished. So he waited till the angel's eyes cleared, till he managed to raise his head. He waited for the angel to start pleading (which the angel did, predictably), and waited a few minutes longer for that sweet moment when real fear crept into the angel's eyes. Then Dean picked up the angel's own blade and positioned it over one of his wrists.

There was a special sweet delight in the moment when the angel realized Dean was really going to go through with it, when he began to plead "Dean, please just kill me,  _please_." Dean ignored him and hammered the blade in with the butt of the shotgun, right between the long bones of the forearm and into the plank. Then Dean's own angel-blade went through the other wrist.

Dean was glad he'd sent Sam away; otherwise Sam would certainly have heard the screams. Even from the far end of the warehouse row.

Finally Dean cut loose the waist rope, so that all the angel's body weight was hanging from the blades. Dean had been careful to angle the blades so that the weight mostly hung against the flat of the blade, so that the blades wouldn't rip right through his flesh immediately.

Dean was a little sorry that the angel only screamed for about another ten minutes, but he'd been prepared for that small disappointment. Alistair had explained many times (with many demonstrations) how it was always a little difficult for crucifixion subjects to breathe properly. This meant the screaming inevitably faded away pretty soon. Also, Dean noticed, the angel was starting to lose his voice. That's why Dean had a Phase 2 ready: As the screaming trailed off into a long series of faint hoarse gasping sobs, Dean cut the angel's shirt off, and started flaying strips of skin slowly off the angel's chest. Dean's plan was to keep this up as long as he could, trying to minimize the blood loss as much as possible, so that the angel would suffer as long as possible.  _Because the angel needed to be punished._

_Because that was what the angel deserved._

_Because this was Dean's job._

_Because this was what Dean was._

A torturer of Hell.

This had been Dean's job for years, and years, and years, and years, here in Hell, at Alistair's side. It was all that he was; all that he knew; and the only thing he remembered.

Dean set about his job carefully. Professionally. He estimated he might get as much as forty-eight hours before the angel finally died, if blood loss could be minimized.

A few hours went by.

Something odd began happening to the angel; instead of screaming he was starting to mumble little loops of dialogue, during which he just repeated the same thing over and over in a hoarse whisper, like a broken record. For a long time he was stuck on "I know you're in there, I know you can hear me, I know you're in there, I know you can hear me." This was interspersed sometimes with "I need you" and even with "I love you". All these phrases just made Dean laugh, for he had no idea what the angel was talking about. It was all just kind of funny.

Then for a while it was just broken little gasps of "Please just kill me, please just kill me, please just kill me."

Once the angel seemed to have a little burst of clarity and he gasped, "You must remember - later - this isn't your fault - it isn't - I forgive you - I forgive you -" Dean  _hated it_  when the sinners here in Hell began to talk like that. As if they had any right to forgive! As if Dean were doing something wrong! As if it weren't all their own fault for sinning in the first place! So the instant the angel began that line of talk, Dean belted him hard across the face with the butt of the shotgun. The angel nearly choked, spat out a mouthful of blood, and couldn't seem to talk for a while after that.

Near the end, the angel began mumbling "You're my friend, you're my family, you're my friend, you're my family." He seemed to be close to delirious now and seemed to be losing his edge. Dean looked around, puzzled; had the angel been losing extra blood somewhere? He glanced at the wrists and swore. There was blood dripping from the hafts of both angel-blades. The blades hadn't been angled exactly right, and had been slowly cutting through the bones and muscle of the arms, and the angel had been losing more blood than Dean had realized. Dammit.  _Dammit!_ Dean had messed up. The angel was not going to suffer enough.

The angel's pronunciation started to decay. He'd still been in the bizarre cycle of muttering "you're my friend, you're my family,", but his words were slurring and syllables disappearing till he was just muttering "friend... fam'ly... frien'... fam'y..." Dean realized, with some regret, that it would be ending soon.

Right around then, Dean started to get a little light-headed.

Tiny lights were dancing overhead, bits of silver glitter floating around in mid-air. He got distracted, watching the dancing bits of silver light, and he forgot what he was doing, staring up into the air.

The room was completely silent.

Dean began to feel very sleepy. He decided to lie down on the floor for a quick nap.

* * *

Something dripped onto Dean's hand.

He shook it off in annoyance. He was sitting in a chair, on a pier, by a lake, and he assumed that he'd just gotten splashed with the lakewater somehow. Maybe a fish had jumped or something.

"It's not your fault," said Castiel. Dean jumped; he hadn't realized Cas was standing right next to him.

Dean squinted up at Cas. Cas was almost standing over him, just a few inches away. He was silhouetted against the sky and Dean couldn't really see him very clearly, but had the impression that something was a little odd. Cas's face was all in shadow; he looked a little strange. He seemed to be looking out at the lake.

"What's not my fault?" asked Dean, puzzled.

Cas didn't answer; he just continued gazing out at the lake. Dean followed his gaze, wondering what he was looking at, and then realized that the water was red.

The lake was full of blood. It was a lake of blood.

"It's not your fault," said Castiel's voice again. Dean looked up at him, but Cas wasn't there anymore. Dean was alone, sitting by a lake full of blood.

* * *

 

Something dripped onto Dean's hand.

It woke Dean up. His head was throbbing terrifically.  _Damn... what a hell of a hangover_ , he thought, trying to remember where had he been last night. He blinked, and tried to swallow. His eyes were scratchy, his throat sore. He felt simply horrible. He closed his eyes again and just lay there, hoping the headache would ease a bit.

It took him a few minutes to realize he wasn't in his bed. Where was he? Had he fallen asleep in front of the tv again? Was he in a motel?

No... he was lying on a hard surface. A floor. A cement floor. He blinked, opening his eyes again, and this time he managed to focus on his surroundings. A big, empty room in some kind of warehouse.  _Oh great. Another warehouse,_ thought Dean, _I must have been on some kind of hunt_.

Something dripped onto Dean's hand.

This time Dean thought to look at his hand, and realized there was blood all over it. He sat up, worried, thinking,  _What happened to my hand?_ , and then saw he was sitting in a pool of blood. A huge pool of blood. He looked at his hands again, and was startled to see he was coated with blood, both his hands and both forearms red to the elbows.

 _Have I been shot? Was I stabbed?_ But he felt no pain.

Something dripped onto Dean's arm this time, and Dean finally realized that blood was dripping onto him from above.

Someone else's blood.

Dean looked up, and gasped.

Dean had been lying right next to one of the huge wooden pillars, and there was a body tied to it. Just above him. No—not tied—no, the guy had been—holy hell, the poor guy had been  _crucified,_ Dean realized. He scuttled backwards like a crab as he took in the awful sight. The guy's arms had been pinned to a horizontal beam by—good god, were those  _angel-blades_  through his wrists?—and he was hanging there like a grotesque reenactment of Christ himself on the cross. The poor bastard, whoever it was, had been nearly flayed, too; the front of his torso seemed just a mass of bloody red meat, with strips of skin hanging off dripping with blood. His pants were drenched with blood; blood was dripping from his feet. His head was hanging down, his face a mask of bruises and blood, his mouth hanging slackly open.

While Dean watched, blank with shock, a heavy drop of blood fell from the guy's open mouth. His mouth was slowly dripping blood, and it was this blood that had been falling on Dean's hand.

"Holy shit!" Dean gasped, managing to scramble to his feet at last. Where the hell was he? What was going on? Who was this guy? He scanned around the warehouse quickly, just to be sure that whatever psychopath had done this wasn't right nearby, but the vast warehouse seemed to be empty.

Dean turned back to the terrible crucifixion scene and reached up to the victim's face to try to figure out if by any chance the poor guy, whoever he was, might somehow still be alive. He saw that the fellow was still breathing, though very faintly.

Then Dean took a second look at the bruised, swollen face and this time he noticed the dark hair, and the familiar line of the jaw.

Dean's stomach clenched; his heart seemed to stop; his breath froze in his chest; for it was  _Cas_. Dean hadn't even recognized him at first.

It was  _Castiel_ , hanging there crucified, flayed alive.

The next moment was the very worst moment of Dean's entire life (and there had been a lot of bad moments in Dean's life). For in the next moment, all the memories of the past couple hours suddenly came flooding back.

Suddenly it was all back in his head, every single moment, in vivid, scalding, horrific clarity. The bite on his arm. The anger—the rage—the maddening thirst for revenge—the absolute  _conviction_  that Cas needed to be punished—pulling the trigger on the shotgun—pounding the blades in—forgetting where he was, forgetting  _who_ he was—the screams—the begging—Dean laughing...

"No no no no no no no no no no no" was all Dean could say. His knees buckled and he slowly crumpled to the floor, gasping, ashen, clinging to Cas's foot as it all sank in. He was sitting  _in Cas's blood_ , he had  _tortured_ Castiel, he had  _crucified him_ , Cas had been  _begging him for mercy_.

The horror was so intense and so unbearable that a violent surge of nausea ripped right through him and Dean immediately vomited up everything in his stomach. He was still retching uncontrollably a minute later, spitting out a thin watery bile, even while he was trying to untie poor Cas's feet. But Dean's hands were shaking so badly that he couldn't get the knot undone. He finally had to undo the knot with his teeth, in between the retching. Then he staggered to his feet to try to tackle the blades in Cas's wrists, but he couldn't figure out how to get the blades out, and then he couldn't figure out how to support Cas while he got the blades out, and it was all such a blinding, unthinkable nightmare that Dean began to weep. He cradled Cas's broken, bloody face in both hands for a long moment, still just saying "no no no no no no" over and over. He couldn't seem to do anything in any logical order, trying to hold Cas up and then trying to take one blade out and trying to hold him up again and pulling ineffectually at one blade and then the other and then trying to hold him up again, choking with sobs, gasping "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Dean finally managed to put together exactly one coherent thought, which was:  _Call Sam_. He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and called Sam, and babbled something so incomprehensible that Sam couldn't figure out what he was saying. Sam had to say "DEAN. DEAN! I can't understand you! Calm down.  _Calm down._ Take a breath.  _Where are you?_ " Dean finally managed to say "Warehouse, it's Cas, come quick come quick I need you." Dean dropped the phone and finally managed to wrench one blade out, then the other, and at last he had Cas down from the hideous cross.

He dragged Cas a few feet away from the puddle of blood and lowered him, as gently as he could, to the ground, saying, "Cas, Cas, Cas, can you hear me? Oh god Cas I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, please wake up, please, Cas can you hear me?"

He had Cas cradled in his lap now, Cas's shoulders across Dean's lap, his head lying in the crook of Dean's arm.

"Cas? Cas? Cas?" Dean kept saying.

By some miracle Cas's eyes slowly slid open.

His eyes were glazed and unfocused at first. He seemed to be gazing straight through Dean.

"Cas? Can you hear me? Cas?"

Slowly Cas's eyes moved to Dean's face.

"Cas!" said Dean, sagging with relief. "Cas, hang on, you just hang on, you're going to be okay, you hear me? You'll be okay, you'll be okay. Oh god Cas, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, Cas, oh god, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, you gotta hang on okay?"

Cas blinked once, a slow blink. His jaw was still slackly open, his breath faint, but Dean saw his eyes focus on Dean's face.

"Hang on, Cas, hang on," Dean kept repeating. "Sam's on his way, we'll get you to a hospital, you'll be okay—"

Cas tried to lift one hand.

"Don't try to move, Cas—just take it easy—you're gonna be okay now—" said Dean, but Cas seemed determined to lift his hand, struggling so hard at it that Dean finally helped him, supporting his elbow. Cas's hand drifted to touch Dean's shoulder; and then came up to Dean's face.

Cas touched the side of Dean's face, letting his hand rest on the side of Dean's jaw. As he had so many times before. Every time he had healed Dean.

Cas whispered something. Dean had to lean close to hear.

He heard Cas mutter, very faintly:

"...my...friend... "

Dean felt Cas's fingers slide down the edge of his jaw. Cas was looking right at him, looking right into Dean's eyes.

Then Cas's arm went limp and his hand fell away. Dean glanced down at Cas's hand and only then realized that the wrist wounds had been seeping quite a lot of blood now that the blades were out. Dean felt Cas sag slightly, and looked back up at Cas's face and—

NO.

That unmistakable look. That haze coming over Cas's blue eyes; his eyes unfocusing, the lovely clear blue going grey and cloudy. The long last sigh of air, his whole torso shrinking slightly. The last rough rattle in the throat.

Everything going limp.

The slight stiffening of the face.

The stilling of all motion.

NO.

* * *

The scene that greeted Sam, when he finally burst into the warehouse, would haunt Sam's nightmares for months. Blood all over the central pillar, blood all over the floor. And there was Dean, covered in blood, holding Cas, also covered in blood. Dean was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Cas's upper body in his lap, Dean's arms wrapped tight around Cas's shoulders, Cas's head turned so that his face was pressed tight to Dean's chest.

Sam had seen plenty of bloodbaths in his life, of course, and they rarely gave him nightmares anymore. The thing that turned this one in particular into a nightmare was actually just the expression on Dean's face.

Or rather, the lack of expression.

Dean was a mess. His face was streaked with blood and tears and snot, he was covered in blood, and he was clutching a bloody, broken Castiel to his chest with all his strength. And yet he was just sitting there looking almost serene. No expression at all on his face. He was just gazing blankly across the room. Quiet. Calm.

It took Sam one long, awful second to take the scene in, and then he dashed over and fell to his knees next to them, gasping "Dean! Oh—jesus—oh my god—what happened? Is he alive? Cas? Cas, can you hear me? Dean, is he—is he—"

Dean didn't answer.

Sam realized that Dean was humming something.

"Dean?" Sam said again. He started to take hold of Cas's hand, to check for a pulse, and then was horrified all over again to discover that both Cas's wrists were a mangled mess of bloody flesh. Sam couldn't even begin to try to find a pulse. Dean had both arms wrapped so tightly around Cas's head and shoulders that Sam couldn't get to Cas's neck to check for a pulse there either. Sam tried to pry Dean's hands away, but Dean wouldn't let go.

"Oh god Dean, what happened to him, holy fuck," Sam said desperately. "What happened, let me see,  _Dean, let me see_! Cas? Can you hear me? Is he breathing? Dean, let go of him. Dean, you have to let go.  _Dean_!  _Let go of him!_ "

It took some struggle before Sam could pry Cas away from Dean even a few inches, even just to check his pulse, even just to confirm that he was dead.

Sam let go of Cas and sank back to the ground.

The second Sam let go, Dean drew Cas close again, back into the tight bloody embrace. Dean had not stopped humming.

Sam sat there in the pool of blood, looking at them both.

Dean was muttering something now under his breath. Sam couldn't make it out at first but then caught a few scraps of words. Dean was muttering:

"..comin' home...to a place he'd never been before..."

Dean kept muttering, his voice warbling weirdly. Sam couldn't even figure out what was happening. Then finally he caught a couple more words:

"m'tn... high... col'rado..." said Dean, his voice descending strangely through what was almost a melody.

The melody was almost recognizable. Sam finally placed it; Dean was singing a John Denver song to Castiel. "Rocky Mountain High." One of Cas's favorites. One that Dean had given him a particularly hard time about.

Well, he was sort of singing it. Sort of chanting it in a hoarse mumbling whisper.

Sam just sat there staring, as it began to sink in that his friend was dead, and that his brother had apparently lost his mind.

Sam finally leaned forward and took Dean's head in his hands, one hand on either side of Dean's face, thinking to himself  _don't break down, don't break down, you gotta take care of Dean, you gotta take care of Dean right now_. Sam forced himself to take a breath and he said, as clearly as he could, "Dean, can you hear me?"

Dean was still humming, still muttering broken lyrics under his breath.

"Dean?" said Sam carefully. "The demon got him, didn't it? Dean, you have to let go of him. You have to let go. It's time to let him go."

To Sam's surprise Dean actually focused on him, stopped humming and spoke.

"I'm waiting for him to wake up," said Dean.

"Dean, can you let him go? Can you hand him to me?"

"No," said Dean, repeating, "I'm waiting for him to wake up." He hummed another broken line of melody, and added, under his breath, "He'll come back...he always comes back."

Sam spent the next several minutes trying to coax Dean to let go of Cas's body, but Dean simply would not relinquish his hold on Cas. He eventually stopped humming the ghastly song, but then just kept repeating "I'm waiting for him to wake up... He'll come back."

It became clear that Dean was convinced that Cas would be resurrected. Soon. In just a few more minutes.

Dean explained at one point, as if he thought Sam were being a little dense, "He always comes back, Sam. Always. It's just taking a little time. We just gotta wait."

It occurred to Sam, as he sat there in the pool of blood, that Dean actually had a point. Cas  _had_ been resurrected from death quite a few times. He'd had, what, four or five miraculous recoveries.

But somehow this time felt different, and after another minute of sitting there in the pool of blood, Sam realized why. There was no Apocalypse going on; for years no there had been no sign of any God stepping in regularly to push things along.

And Cas had been human this time.

 _He died human this time_ , thought Sam. Humans actually could get resurrected, of course, if circumstances were exactly perfectly right. They could get resurrected by an angel, or by a powerful enough demon. But there was no angel in sight; and neither Sam nor Dean had been able to get any crossroads demon to even talk to them for a few years now.

Sam reached out and touched Cas's hand gently, and realized Cas's body (or, his vessel, anyway) was growing cool.

After about five more minutes of trying to pry Cas's cooling body out of Dean's arms, Sam stood and walked over to the little door and walked outside for a moment, so that he could cry without Dean hearing. It was still foggy out, the streetlamps just fuzzy glowing yellow patches in the fog, the other warehouses dimly visible as large dark ghostly hulks. Sam stood there, alone, just outside the little door, his head down, trying to gulp back his sobs. He couldn't keep it all hidden and some sobs got out, shaking him, and he just stood there trying to grit his teeth, trying to breathe, trying to wipe his face dry. Muttering to himself, "I should have been here, I should have been here."

He got his breathing back under control, and ran both hands through his hair. Stared at the fog. Thought,  _what do I do? How do I make Dean let go of the body? How can I get Dean back home?_

He made himself turn. Made himself walk back inside.

Sam walked over to Dean, knelt by his side and said, "Dean, why don't we take him back to the bunker. He'll be more comfortable if he wakes up there. Once he wakes up we can feed him some food immediately. Right? Let's take him back to the bunker, okay?"

Dean considered this, a faint frown appearing briefly on his blood-streaked face. "Okay, that sounds good," he said at last. He started to struggle to his feet but still would not let go of Cas.

"Why don't we carry him to the car together," suggested Sam shakily. "Let me help carry him. That way he'll be, uh, uh, uh, h-h-he'll be, m-m-m-more..." Sam just managed to bite back another near-sob, by holding his breath for several seconds. Once he could breathe again, he gasped out, "He'll be more comfortable."

Dean thought about that, and said, "No, I want to carry him. I'll carry him."

"Please let me help," said Sam.

"No, I'll carry him," said Dean, calm as ever, struggling now to get Cas's bloody limp body flopped over his back. Then he tried to stand. But Cas seemed to be a heavy burden, all his limbs loose and floppy and slippery with blood, and Dean simply could not get to his feet.

" _Please Dean please let me help carry him,_   _please_ ," said Sam, his voice cracking. Something in his tone seemed to break through Dean's eerily calm veneer for a second. Dean looked at Sam. For a split second an expression of sheer horror came across Dean's face.

Dean closed his eyes and his face went blank again.

Dean opened his eyes again, his expression still blank.

"Okay," said Dean. He lowered Cas back down to the ground, and took Cas's shoulders. "You can get his feet," said Dean. "Be careful though. Don't hurt him."

"I won't hurt him," whispered Sam, taking Cas's feet. One of the feet seemed to stretch and turn very strangely when Sam took hold of it, and it took Sam a moment to figure out that the entire leg seemed to be flopping bonelessly. The leg had been shattered somehow. Sam dropped that foot as if it were on fire, and had to stare up at the ceiling for a second. Sam looked at Dean (Dean was still just gazing at Sam patiently) and thought  _Keep it together, keep it together._

Sam lifted Cas just by the unbroken leg, while Dean carried his shoulders.

"Don't hurt him," said Dean again.

They began to carry Cas toward the door. But Sam was in front, and the broken leg began to drag along on the ground. It started to fold back under Cas in a truly horrifying way, and Sam said, "Stop." They stopped. Dean said "Don't hurt him." Sam set down Cas's good leg, picked up the strangely floppy bad leg, crossed the bad leg over the good one, knelt, vomited, tried to stand, sank right back down to his knees again, vomited a second time, wiped his mouth, stood, picked up the good foot, and said "Okay."

They started moving again.

"Don't hurt him," said Dean.

Sam staggered on, walking backwards with Cas's one good foot clamped in both hands, leading the way. The entire warehouse was reeling around Sam now, and Sam had to call out "Stop" a few more times in order to lean over with his hands on his knees, just breathing for a moment, thinking  _Do not pass out, do not throw up again, don't you dare, you gotta take care of Dean, you gotta keep it together._

They finally got Cas out the door.

"Don't hurt him," said Dean.

"I won't," Sam said. "I'm not. He's not hurting, Dean."

"Don't hurt him."

"We're not hurting him, Dean."

"Don't hurt him."

This, too, became part of the nightmare that haunted Sam every night for many months after: carrying Cas's ruined body through the dark warehouse, out into the foggy night, through the grasses in the derelict parking lot to the Impala, trying to fold his broken body into the back seat, while a glassy-eyed Dean repeated "Don't hurt him," at least a hundred times.

* * *

_A/N - I am sorry..._

...  _should I continue this? It actually goes some weird cool places later._ _If there is interest I will start plotting & writing the rest of the chapters. Or, alternatively, if you're all just horrified I'll just pitch it all in the trash and go write some happy cuddle fluff._

_...also... I do have a couple more chapters ready right now (chapters 2 and 3) which I will probably go ahead and post regardless, so click Subscribe if you are masochistic enough to want to read those. The rest of the fic, if I go aheead with it, will probably not be finished till late summer._


	2. Back By Dawn

A/N - All right, you masochists. Here's chapter 2. Starting off with a flashback:

* * *

**_THEN_**

 

_Cas had originally spotted the damn thing in a thrift store in Nebraska. Dean had taken him in there just to get him some clothes - his original trenchcoat outfit had been ruined or bloodied up or something when he'd lost his grace — and Dean had been right in the middle of picking out some jeans and shirts for him, when Cas had just veered off to look at the something behind the Salvation Army counter. A battered old guitar. Next thing Dean knew Cas had asked for it, and was holding it, and looking at it, and saying, "Dean, do we have enough money to get this instrument? I really think I only need one pair of jeans."_

_And Cas didn't even know how to play it! He'd just said, "Music is a part of every human culture, Dean. You like music, for example. You listen to music constantly. I should learn something about it."_

_So Dean had to buy the damn guitar._

_Later Sam took Cas to the library to get some how-to-play-the-guitar books. And then Dean (and Sam) had to live through a few weeks at the bunker listening to Castiel totally incompetently strumming a D chord, or whatever the easiest chord in the world was, TEN MILLION TIMES IN A ROW. Eventually he'd managed to learn a second chord, and a third, though it still seemed to take him about a friggin' week just to reposition his fingers and get to the next chord._

_But he did learn the second chord eventually, and the third, and Dean started to think Cas might actually succeed some day at getting all the way through a genuine, actual song. (Though possibly at one-twentieth normal speed.) So he just couldn't help laughing when, one day, he finally heard Cas, practicing in the library like usual, muttering some out-of-tune lyrics along with his glacial slow strumming:_

_"Coming home.... to a place... he'd... never... been before..." Cas was muttering._

_First of all, it was hilarious to hear Castiel try to sing. It was like watching a buffalo try to waltz. Second of all... he'd apparently picked John Denver's goddam "Rocky Mountain High."_

_JOHN DENVER._

_"John Denver, Cas? Seriously? JOHN? DENVER?" said Dean, walking into the library and shaking his head with a laugh. "My god, Cas, I should have known you'd pick the cheesiest music possible."_

_Cas stopped his growly imitation of singing instantly, stopped strumming, and looked up. He said, "Wasn't it a popular song? The lady in the library said it was a popular song."_

_Dean gave a little laugh, "Word to the wise, Cas, small-town librarians might not be the best source for good music. And also, Cas..." Dean took a breath. "You really... you ought to know how that guy died. The guy who wrote that song. He fell, Cas. His damn airplane ran out of gas. He fell from the sky and died. "_

_"I know, Dean," Cas said, looking down at the John Denver songbook propped on the table in front of him. "The lady in the library told me." He paused. "That's why I wanted to start with one of his songs."_

_Dean opened his mouth... and shut it again._

_Cas looked up at him. He said, that worried look on his face now,"You don't like this song?"_

_Dean tried to give him a smile. "Cas... it's.... I guess it's an okay song."_

_"I thought it was pretty," said Cas. "And I like the words."_

_Dean sighed. "The librarian wasn't wrong, it was popular. It's just... we've been hearing the same chords for weeks now, Cas. Like, a million times. Maybe you could take it somewhere else? Just so we can work in the library again? It's just that it makes it a little hard to concentrate."_

_Cas's face clouded. "Oh," he said, standing up immediately, holding the guitar in one hand and scooping up the book with the other. "My apologies. I didn't realize it was distracting."_

_The next day Cas took the guitar outside. He found a spot on a little hill across a field, under some trees, where he was out of earshot of the bunker._

_He practiced there for the rest of the summer, whenever the weather was good. When it rained, he took it up to the top floor of the bunker, and Dean knew he tried to strum quietly. But Dean could still hear, and had to laugh as Cas started adding one crappy song after another to his increasingly crappy repertoire, all of which he played... crappily. "Sunshine on my Shoulders".  "Take Me Home, Country Roads." "Morning Has Broken". "Sound of Silence"._

_It was kind of sweet how Cas wanted to learn about humanity, but... folk songs? FOLK SONGS? SERIOUSLY?_

_Dean never let him bring the guitar when they traveled for hunts. The Impala was already pretty full, now that Cas had to bring his own bag of clothes, and the guitar just would've gotten in the way._

* * *

**NOW**

 

Sam had done some very grim drives before.

Drives with a corpse in the car, even.

The worst drive, of course, had been when they'd had to drive their dad's body away from the hospital, to cremate him on a funeral pyre out in the middle of a fallow field. Sam had always thought nothing could ever possibly be worse than that drive. That whole night, actually. The long hours they'd spend finding enough scrap lumber to build the pyre. Dragging Dad up there. Lighting the fire, watching it grow. 

Standing there watching it burn.

Bobby, also.... losing Bobby had been bad. Really bad. That had been a terrible drive too.

But this drive was worse.

The worst thing about it wasn't that there was a body in the car. Or the fact that Sam had to drive alone in the front seat—Dean had insisted in climbing into the back seat with Cas's body ("So he won't be alone when he wakes up", he'd said). The worst thing wasn't even that it was such a long drive.

The worst thing was the way Dean kept humming.

Humming, and sometimes singing. First it was just that hellish "Rocky Mountain High" over and over and over, the same thing he'd been humming when Sam found him with Cas's body. Sam was sure he'd never be able to hear that song again without getting nauseous.

After an hour or two, Dean started to rotate through some other tunes that Cas had been learning over the summer, and that Dean had always pretty much hated: a couple more John Denver songs like "Country Roads", and some other sappy folk songs like "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Morning Has Broken". Every cheesy folk song Cas had ever liked and Dean had ever made fun of (which was all of them). Turned out Dean had somehow picked up the lyrics for damn near all of them, and now he wouldn't stop singing them.

He sang for hours, out of tune, out of rhythm, muttering the lyrics almost like a chant, while Sam drove. Sam just sat mute in the front seat, dry-eyed, his hands on the wheel. Just staring at the highway.

Dean's voice got fainter as the hours dragged by, till  Sam was just catching the occasional little warble or muttered scrap of lyrics. Eventually Dean fell silent, and every time Sam looked in the back seat after that, Dean was just staring to the side, out the window, his eyes vacant. Sam tried talking to him, but Dean never replied.

Sam asked a few times, "Dean, can you tell me what happened?" Obviously the demon must've got Cas, but how exactly? Was the demon still out there? Sam didn't find out, for Dean never replied.

Sam could just see, in the rearview mirror, a tuft of dark hair against Dean's chest, and realized that Dean had got Cas's body in his arms again, and was again clutching Cas's head to his chest.

They'd just crossed the Kansas border when Dean said clearly "It might take a day," breaking the silence so suddenly that Sam gave a huge jump and accidentally put the Impala into an alarming fish-tail swerve. Sam had to fight through two more fishtails before he got control back. He slowed the Impala almost to a crawl afterwards, his heart thumping.

"Till he comes back, you know," Dean went on, as though nothing had happened. "I was thinking, when Lucifer exploded him, he was right back as soon as the fight ended, and that was maybe, oh, ten minutes? You probably don't remember that."

Actually Sam remembered that particular Cas-death in hideous, horrid detail. But he wasn't going to get into that now.

Dean went on, "But it's not always right away like that. The _first_ time he got exploded was when he was protecting Chuck, right? And it was a few days till he turned up again." Dean paused a moment, thinking, and continued, "Also, the time he had the sigil on his chest and got blown out to sea, it was days till we heard from him. Though... both those times, I actually think he came back pretty quick, and it's just that we didn't meet up with him till later. But anyway, I was thinking, it's probably normal for it to take a while. So we should get his vessel all ready for him to step back into it, but we gotta be prepared for it to be a day or so."

Dean paused, and added, "The only thing I'm worried about is..." He trailed off.

Sam thought, _The only thing I'm worried about is ... I'm pretty sure Cas isn't coming back this time._

"The only thing I'm worried about," Dean continued after a pause, "is, I'm not sure if the vessel will get healed up like normal when he comes back. Because, he might not be a full-power angel again — not immediately, anyway. Remember when he came back from the fishing boat, he'd lost his mojo for a while? But, the vessel wasn't _damaged_  and the sigil was all healed so... I think... I think he could heal up a little, but wasn't all the way back to normal. I've been thinking about it and I think maybe I should stitch it all up, clean the vessel up, y'know, get it all ready for him."

Dean fell silent for a moment, and then started humming "Rocky Mountain High." 

Sam just kept on driving.

Dean didn't speak again. He just kept humming.

It was a thirteen-hour drive.

* * *

When they finally pulled up in the bunker's garage, late in the evening, Sam staggered out of the driver's seat and turned to the passenger door feeling very unsure what he'd have to deal with. He'd been gearing himself up for, possibly, a catatonic Dean who might just keep humming "Rocky Mountain High" a thousand more times and who maybe wouldn't even be able to walk on his own. But instead Dean popped the door open and stepped right out, looking perfectly calm. He turned and wrestled Cas's body out of the back seat. Rigor mortis had set in and Cas's body was frozen up now, slightly curled with the arms twisted strangely, but Dean didn't seem to even care. He just wrestled the stiffly curled body out of the Impala's back seat and onto the garage floor.

Sam tried to help, taking a few steps closer, but was so rattled at the sight of the Cas's face that he was just tripping over his own feet and getting in the way. Dean elbowed him away roughly.

Dean slid Cas's twisted, stiff body a few feet away from the car, said, "Watch that for me, would ya?" and he trotted off into the bunker.

Sam stood staring at the frozen, glazed expression on Cas's face. It didn't remotely look like Cas anymore. The bruises, the blood... and the eyes were sunken now, and the lips pulled back in a rigor-mortis grimace...

It wasn't Cas anymore.

 _It was never really Cas at all_ , Sam reminded himself. It had been Jimmy Novak's body, really. Castiel had just borrowed Jimmy's body; Sam knew that perfectly well. But Cas had been in that body for so many years now, and Jimmy was long gone; it had become impossible to imagine Cas with any other face. The black hair; the gentle blue eyes; the always-slightly-sad expression; the bit of stubble on the chin; that was what Sam always pictured, when he pictured Castiel.

But this twisted bloody dead thing on the floor seemed to have nothing to do with him.

Sam finally covered Cas's face with a tarp and staggered off into the bunker to look for Dean.

He found Dean bustling around in the kitchen, filling a bucket with warm water and assembling a stack of washcloths and first-aid supplies, along with a set of shears.

"Dean," said Sam, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder to try to slow him down. "Dean. Listen to me. Maybe we should give him a hunter's burial? Send him on his way? He was human this time, Dean—"

"Don't be ridiculous," said Dean. "No way are we burning him. He'll be back soon and he'll want the vessel back and he'll be pissed if we ruin it. He could get another vessel, but he likes this one. He's used to it." He picked up the bucket, the washclothes and the first-aid kit, and stuck the shears in his back pocket. 

"Dean, listen to me. I really don't think he's gonna be back this time..."

But Dean wasn't listening. He just strode off toward the garage, carrying all the supplies in one arm, lugging the bucket of warm water in the other.

Sam trailed him into the garage, and watched as Dean cut Cas's jeans off with the shears and began to wash all the blood off him.

Dean worked very carefully and methodically, washing every inch of Cas's body, with the exact same calm, focused expression on his face that he usually had when he was washing the Impala. He started by carefully washing all the filth from between Cas's legs (death was like that, Sam knew), as gently as a parent washing a baby. Once that was all cleaned up, he got new washclothes and new water and washed all the blood that seemed to have dripped all over Cas's legs and feet. He washed the wounds on the wrists, and the wound on the shattered leg; he washed all the torn, flayed skin on Cas's chest; he even washed Cas's hair, and rolled the stiff body over to wash his back.

This had all took an extremely long time. It had been just past sunset when they'd pulled in, and Dean was still hard at work as midnight approached. Dean was being excruciatingly careful, washing each body part half a dozen times over, with clean warm soapy water and a new clean washcloth every time. He had to keep going back to the kitchen for more water, and eventually Sam took on the job of keeping Dean supplied with constant fresh bucketfuls of warm soapy water, and fresh stacks of washcloths and towels. Sam just kept pouring the soiled water down the garage drawn, cleaning the bucket, and  carrying it back to the kitchen for more water.

It was near midnight, and Sam had long since lost track of how many bucketfuls of water he'd carried, when Dean finally got to Cas's face. This was the last part of Cas's body that he hadn't cleaned.

Dean still had just that calm, focused look on his face. But as he moved a clean, soft, damp washcloth to one of Cas's cheeks, his arm started to slow down, and slow further, until Dean was frozen with his hand suspended in midair, gazing blankly down at Cas's face. Sam looked too; Cas's whole face was covered with bruises and blood, and there were little pale lines through the dried blood. Little vertical lines on Cas's cheeks.

Sam suddenly realized that the little vertical lines were the tracks of tears.

 _Oh no. Oh no,_ thought Sam, putting his head in his hands. Up to that moment he'd still been clinging to an unlikely hope that Cas might have died quickly; that the demon might have killed him fast, and just torn up his body later. But... _oh no._

_It had been slow._

It had made Castiel cry. Until this moment, Sam could not have imagined anything that could make Castiel cry.

And whatever the demon had done to him, clearly Dean had seen it happen.

"Dean, let me clean his face." said Sam, trying to take the washcloth from Dean and push him gently away, but he couldn't pull the washcloth out of Dean's grasp and couldn't seem to budge Dean at all. Dean's arm finally started moving again; he set the washcloth down on Cas's cheek, and gently moved it down, moving in eerily slow motion, one slow millimeter at a time

Very slowly, with no expression on his face at all, Dean washed the tracks of the tears off of Castiel's face. He washed Cas's face over, and over, and over, changing washclothes constantly. Till it was perfectly clean. Then Dean washed Cas's face again, and washed it again. Sam realized he was trying to wash the bruises off, and had to sit down next to him and take hold of his wrist, whispering, "He's clean, Dean. Everything's clean. You can stop."

Dean finally nodded, and let Sam take the washcloth away.

And then Dean really set to work.

He turned to his little bundle of first-aid supplies and laid out every package of suture that they had in a neat long line, and began carefully setting the strips of Cas's flayed skin back in place. Sam realized immediately what he was trying to do, and said, "Dean. You don't have to do this. That's going to take hundreds of stitches, Dean, you should rest now, he's all clean, I can do the rest. _Dean. Dean?_ "  Of course Dean wasn't listening, and Sam watched in dismay as Dean began to tape the bloody strips of flesh back in place, first using medical tape to hold them in position, and then starting to suture them to the exposed muscle underneath. Tidy little stitches, in neat long rows.

"Dean..." said Sam hopelessly, "Let me do that..." But when he tried to take the needle, of course Dean just shoved him away. Hard.

So Sam just sat by his side and watched.

Dean bent over his work, concentrating on each little stitch. Setting the curved needle in place, making a neat little knot, trimming the edges short, moving to the next stitch.

He began to hum again.

It was a different tune this time, another one Cas had liked. Sam finally placed it: "Angel From Montgomery." Cas had started working on that one pretty recently, just at the end of the summer, and Dean had given Castiel particular hell about that one. Sam remembered Dean saying " _Angel songs,_  Cas? Are you  _kidding_ me _?"_

But once again Dean turned out to have somehow memorized some of the lyrics.

 _"Make me an angel.... that flies from Montgomery"_ , Dean sang now, under his breath, a little off-key.

_"Make me a poster.... of an old rodeo."_

_"Just give me something... that I can hold on to..."_

_"To believe in this living... is just a hard way to go."_

Those seemed to be the only words he knew out of the entire song, for he sang just those four lines, over and over and over.

Later, as the time crept toward midnight, Sam suggested a few times that maybe Dean had done enough stitches, or maybe he could switch to less frequent or less tidy stitches, or maybe he could just bandage the strips of skin in place. Dean never spoke, and never answered, and just kept on doing his rows of neat, tiny little stitches.

At midnight Sam decided he really had to physically pull Dean away from Cas - if just to get Dean to drink some water, or at least take a bathroom break. Dean hadn't even drunk any water in half a day. Dean shrugged Sam's hands off the first two times Sam tried to pull him away. The third time, Dean dropped his needle and thread and wheeled on Sam in a fury, one fist raised for a punch.

Dean froze partway through the punch, as Sam flinched back, raising one arm to block the punch.

Dean lowered his hand, blinking. He turned back to Cas's body silently, picked up the needle and thread, and continued with the next stitch.

Sam finally thought of saying, "Dean, you need to eat something, because... because Cas'll be pissed if you make the stitches all shaky. You should take a break and eat something, or the stitches won't be good." This finally got through; Dean lifted his head, and nodded, and grudgingly allowed Sam to pull him to his feet and into the kitchen, where Sam made Dean wash his hands. Or rather, Sam, actually washed Dean's hands for him, putting them under the hot water, Dean standing stiffly like a mannequin while Sam scrubbed his hands clean and rinsed them and dried them. Sam gave Dean a glass of water and Dean drank it; Sam put a sandwich in his hands and Dean ate it; Sam steered him to the bathroom and Dean disappeared inside and came out a minute later just as blank-faced as ever, turning and walking down the hallway back to the garage. Dean returned to the stitches, and Sam sat by his side.

It took over four hours. By the end, Cas, or Cas's vessel at least, was neatly stitched up, with long tidy lines of hundreds of stitches holding all the flayed skin perfectly in position. The terrible wounds at the wrist had been carefully cleaned and bound. Dean had even picked all the buckshot out from the damaged leg, and had splinted the leg. There was a neat bandage across the bruise on Cas's cheek, where he'd been struck by something; and several tiny little butterfly band-aids on some little cuts here and there. Each little butterfly band-aid was placed precisely.

Last, Dean slid Cas onto a big white sheet and folded the sheet neatly around him, leaving the face exposed.

"The vessel's in pretty good shape, don't you think, Sam?" he said, turning to Sam with a truly ghastly smile. "I couldn't fix everything, but...you think Cas'll be happy with it?"

"Yeah..." whispered Sam. "Cas'll be happy... he'll be happy, Dean."

"I was a little worried he was might return while I was still working. Before the vessel was ready," said Dean, stretching his arms over his head. "But it's ready now. He can come back now."

He dumped the last of the used water out of the bucket down the floor drain, carried the bucket back over to Cas, flipped the bucket over, and sat down on it, next to Cas's shrouded body.

Dean just sat there, looking down at the bundled shape in the sheet.

"Dean?" said Sam. "Maybe you should go lie down? Take a shower, take a rest?"

"Nah," said Dean. "I'll wait for him here."

"Wait for him?" said Sam.

"I'll just wait for him here," said Dean. "He'll probably be back by dawn. Don't want him to wake up alone."

Sam said nothing, but sat down on the concrete floor, next to Dean, and leaned back on the Impala. And waited. 

* * *

Sam lifted his head and realized he had gotten weirdly slouched against the Impala's wheel. He could hear birds singing, and could see a scrap of bright blue sky through the garage door's little windows. For a long floating moment he couldn't figure out why he was there - why he was sitting next to the Impala slouched in this awkward position, why Dean was sitting there on that bucket, what was wrapped up in the sheet.

Then he remembered.

_Oh no. Oh no._

And then he realized he'd fallen asleep. 

Sam had been trying to help poor Dean keep vigil, trying to be there for his brother, for his friend— trying to friggin' _be there for Castiel_ for one last damn time — and Sam had _friggin' fallen asleep._  He hadn't been there for Castiel last night, in the warehouse, when it had really, really friggin' mattered, and he hadn't even managed to here for Castiel now, even if just to help keep vigil over Cas's body. It was past dawn; it was a beautiful morning, the birds were singing outside, and Sam wanted to curl up and cry.

He did curl up, for a moment, but no tears would come.

Dean was still just sitting there slouched on the bucket, staring at the still, silent shape that was bundled up in the sheet. It was past dawn, and Castiel's vessel was still dead.

"Dean?" Sam said hoarsely.

Dean didn't move for a moment, and Sam wasn't sure he'd heard. But then Dean lifted his head and said, "He'll be back by tonight."

* * *

 

_A/N - One more chapter is about ready to be posted, just as cheery and heartwarming as this one, after that things will slow down. Thanks so much for the feedback and encouragement - but are you guys sure?_


	3. Shopping With Dean

Somewhat to Sam's surprise, he managed to coax Dean to leave Cas for long enough to take a shower, change his clothes (Dean, and his clothes, were still covered with Cas's blood), and drink some more water. Dean submitted quietly, just passively letting Sam tug him up off the bucket, and to the kitchen to drink the water, and then to the bathroom. Sam sighed with relief to hear the shower starting.

He agonized for a few moments about whether to stay outside in case Dean needed help. But Sam knew he was covered with a fair bit of blood himself, and finally headed off to the back bathroom to try to get a quick shower himself.

Sam showered and dressed as quickly as he could, but even so he'd only just got his shoes back on when he suddenly heard the faint, distinctive creak of the garage bay doors being hauled open. He raced to the garage to find the doors wide open and Dean walking briskly back to the Impala, walking right past Cas's shrouded body without a second glance. The Impala key was in his hand.

Sam managed to throw himself against the driver's door just before Dean got to it, and tried to barricade it with his body.

"Dean, please, STOP, _please!"_ Sam gasped, his hands up. "Please, give me the key."

"I gotta go, Sam," was all Dean said. His voice quiet. That all-too-familiar blank look on his face.

"Where? Why?"

"Stores open at ten in Hastings," said Dean, glancing at his watch. "It's almost nine."

Sam blinked. "What?"

"The vessel'll be okay here for a couple hours. It's pretty chilly in here," said Dean, nodding briefly at Cas. Sam reluctantly glanced over at the awful shrouded figure and was startled to realize Dean had wrapped it neatly in a blanket.

And put a pillow under the head.

And put a water bottle, a cell phone, and a little note next to it.

_Water bottle, cell phone and note._

"Oh, Dean," said Sam, his face twisting.

"Should just take us three hours I think, maybe four," Dean said, trying to shove Sam aside. "C'mon, Sam, get out of the way."

Hastings was an hour's drive away. In Nebraska. It was the nearest town of any size, the place they usually drove when they needed to make a major grocery run. Sam could not get Dean to explain why he wanted to go to Hastings, and could not get him to back away from Impala. They nearly got into a fistfight when Sam tried to wrestle the keys away from him; Dean almost belted Sam in the face but froze in mid-blow, as he had last night. And once again, the next moment, his face went completely blank again and he lowered his hand.

"I need to get to Hastings," said Dean, a tinge of confusion in his voice. "I need to get to Hastings, Sam. The stores are there."

"Okay, Dean, okay," said Sam. "But how about you let me drive. You can grab a nap on the way." Dean gave Sam a very skeptical look, and Sam said, "I _swear_ I will drive straight to Hastings and to whatever store you want. But _please_ let me drive, Dean. _Please_."

Sam was terrified that if Dean drove, Dean might just drive the car right off the road into a tree.

Possibly on purpose.

Dean gave Sam another long, blank look, and finally said, "Okay," and tossed Sam the keys. He walked around the Impala's hood and clambered into the passenger seat.

Dean sat very alertly in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead at the road, his hands folded neatly in his lap. Sam had to put on his seatbelt for him.

Once they got going, Sam said, "Dean.... you know... I was thinking. I really hate to say this but, Dean... I really don't know if Cas will come back this time."

Dean was silent. Sam stole a glance at him; Dean was still just staring straight ahead.

Sam went on, as gently as he could, "Dean... Cas was human this time. Nobody really knows what happens if an angel dies as a human. They don't have a human soul, so I don't know if... if they... can... still... be anywhere... go anywhere... if they have no grace, and the vessel dies, and... Um. And also the Apocalypse wasn't happening, either, and I just kind of doubt that God's going to step in again. And... it's been more than a day now. So I just... I just think that... we oughta be prepared for... I know this... _just sucks_..." Sam's voice was getting wobbly now but he forced himself to say, "I don't know if he'll be able to come back, Dean, and—"

"Sam, don't be such a _fucking idiot_ ," Dean snapped, his voice absolutely icy. "He always comes back."

"I just meant that—"

"HE ALWAYS COMES BACK," shouted Dean, so loudly that Sam flinched.

"Dean, I know this is hard, I know this is hard, _I know this is hard_ ," said Sam rapidly, his voice really choking now. "Oh, _god,_ Dean, I know it must have been so .... so _fucking horrible_ seeing that demon... do that to him. But you _must_ know it wasn't your fault, Dean—"

"Almost Heaven!" said Dean loudly, interrupting Sam. Sam was completely baffled till Dean added, a little more quietly, "West Virginia...." And then "Blue Ridge mountains... Shenandoah River...."

Another John Denver song. Sam fell silent.

"Life is old there... older than the trees... younger than the mountains... blowin' like a breeze," sang Dean, off key.

Dean's voice trailed off again into soft, off-key sort of muttering. He sang slowly:

_"Country roads..."_

_"Take me home...."_

_"To the place..."_

_"I belong..."_

And Sam just drove.

* * *

When they got to Hastings, Dean perked up suddenly, directed Sam to the Wal-Mart and made Sam park the car. Then Dean popped out and strode inside, walking fast; Sam had to hurry to keep up with him. Dean grabbed a cart and rolled it straight to the men's clothing section, where he quickly grabbed some boxers and black socks. He tossed those in the cart and rolled the cart briskly over to the shoe section. Sam trailed along beside him, baffled.

Dean stood a while staring at the shoes. Finally he picked up a black ankle boot and said, "These look about right. I'm not certain, though." He hefted the shoe in his hand, turning it around and looking it over with close attention, and added, "I'm not sure. And I should have checked his shoe size. Do you know what size he wears?"

 _Oh god_ , thought Sam. _Black shoes. I get it_.

"Cas?" said Sam. "Cas's shoe size? Uh... I never asked."

"It's not exactly right, is it?" said Dean, staring at the shoe and turning it around in his hands again. He picked up another short black boot, and then a black dress shoe, tucking the first shoe under one arm so that he could study the other two, and stared at them too. He said, "I can't remember exactly what shoe it was. And I should have checked his size. I should have asked him where he got them from." He suddenly looked very worried, his forehead creased with concern as he inspected some other shoes. He tucked the second shoe under the other arm and picked up a fourth shoe. And a fifth.

"Sam, I don't know what shoe to get," Dean said at last, finally looking up at Sam, his arms full of black shoes.

He looked desperately afraid.

"Hey, Dean, you know, I bet he'll be happy with just any kind of shoe. As long as it's black," said Sam. He pointed at the ankle boot that Dean had grabbed first. "That one looks about right. And you know what, I bet he wears about one size down from yours. Because he's just a couple inches shorter than you. So, probably one or two sizes down, don't you think?"

Dean seemed somewhat reassured. He dumped all the other shoes on the floor and picked out two sizes of the black ankle boots, still fretting about whether the style was right, and put them in his cart. Then they had to go pick out a white button-down shirt, and a very-dark-grey two-piece business suit (jacket and pants), and a blue tie. And of course, a tan trenchcoat.

Dean got very worried about the coat. What Wal-Mart had apparently wasn't right at all.

"It has to be right," he muttered, rejecting several possible coats that Sam brought over to him. "It has to be right. It's the most important thing, Sam."

"You know what, Dean. I don't think he'll mind if it's a little different," said Sam.

"IT HAS TO BE THE RIGHT COAT, SAM," Dean shouted, spinning around to shout it right in Sam's face. "THE COAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING! IT HAS TO BE RIGHT!" Sam flinched and took a step back. A dozen other people nearby had turned to stare.

"Okay, Dean," said Sam gently. "Hastings has some other stores. We can check some other stores."

They paid for what they had already picked out, and checked several other stores without success, searching for a better coat. Dean checked one store after another, each time saying, "The coats here are _completely wrong."_   They spent over an hour on the trenchcoat search, Sam stumbling after him, feeling now as if he were floating through an eerie, surreal, nightmarish dream. Or maybe Sam had somehow gotten stuck in a uniquely horrible Hell?

A Hell called something like _Shopping for Dead Angels with Dean._

And then they happened to wander into a JC Penney. They'd just barely got through the doors when Dean said "There!" and made a beeline straight across the first floor, actually running, dodging his way through rack after rack of clothes. To a certain rack of tan trenchcoats that he'd somehow spotted from clear across the store. Sam had to sprint to catch up.

"This is it," Dean said, ruffling through them. "Don't you think?" He held one out, and Sam was amazed — Dean was right. He'd actually found exactly the right coat. Who knew Castiel had been getting his clothes from JC Penney?

"What size do you think?" said Dean, and they had to have another fretful discussion about sizes, with Dean trying on several potential sizes and then finally deciding on one that was just a little too small for him. They bought the coat, got back to the Impala and Dean put the bags up on the trunk. He went through each bag, pulling each item out and looking it over carefully.

"Did I forget anything?" he asked Sam, sounding very worried.

"No, you've got everything, Dean," said Sam.

"Boxers, pants, shirt, jacket, shoes, socks, the tie, and the coat," said Dean, checking everything one more time. "Is there anything else? I feel like I'm forgetting something."

"That's everything, Dean. You got everything," said Sam, adding half-heartedly, "Cas'll be happy." He couldn't even believe the words that were coming out of his mouth: _Cas will be happy..._ Not only present tense but goddam _future_ tense.

"You think? You think he'll think it's okay? I think the shoes are wrong, Sam."

"Cas'll like them," said Sam, trying to sound confident. "Besides, he's had totally different clothes recently anyway. He hasn't had this whole outfit in months, you know. He likes those jeans, actually, you know...." Sam trailed off as he remembered those were the jeans that had been completely soaked with blood, and that Dean had cut off with the shears last night, and that Sam had bundled up in a black plastic bag and carried out to the trash at four in the morning.

"He's been wearing... other clothes," finished Sam lamely. 

"Only because I never thought to take him to a JC Penney," said Dean. He lifted his head and stared off into space for a moment, and said, "I never asked him where he'd like to go. When I took him to get some clothes. I just dragged him to that thrift store. I never asked what he wanted." Dean stared at the horizon a moment longer. Then he blinked, and picked up all the bags from the hood. He began to carry them around to the trunk.

"You can just put them in the back seat," offered Sam, and then he remembered, belatedly, that the back seat must still be covered with blood. "Or the trunk. The trunk is good. They'll fit in the trunk."

Dean put them in the trunk, wedging them in next to all the weapons.

Then Sam drove all the way back. He knew he should be exhausted; he'd driven thirteen hours the previous evening, had been up all night the night before that (the terrible night, the horrible night, the night Sam couldn't bear to think about); he'd been up till about five last night, and had only gotten maybe three hours of sleep slouched against the Impala tire. And now the drive to Hastings and trying to find the damn trenchcoat. And now driving again. He'd had nothing to eat the whole time. Sam could feel the tiredness in his muscles, and knew he should be sleepy, and hungry, but he felt _completely wide awake_. Almost vibrating with how awake he felt. Floating through Surreal World. Nothing seemed really real; surely it was all some kind of strange dream.

He glanced over at Dean. Dean hadn't even had the three hours' sleep; he'd been up a good fifty hours now. But he was just sitting perfectly upright again in the passenger seat, his hands laced in his lap, gazing out the side window at the trees and fields sliding past.

Sam thought several times about asking Dean what had happened, exactly, back there in the warehouse. How had the demon managed to injure Castiel so horrifically while leaving Dean completely unharmed? _Dean must have been tied up or something,_ Sam thought. _Probably saw the whole thing and was trying to get free to help Cas, but couldn't cut through his ropes in time_.

Or something like that.

Sam wanted to ask about it; but he knew by now that if he asked anything, Dean would just start singing one of the songs again.

So Sam just drove.

Dean started looking at his phone periodically on the way back. Turning it on and off, sometimes making a comment about "Bad service here... are you getting any better service, Sam?" or "Could you call my phone, Sam? Just want to check the ringer." 

He checked his phone dozens of times. Till finally he was just staring at it nonstop. 

Well, at least he wasn't singing.

* * *

When Sam pulled up at the bunker, Dean bounced out of the car and actually _ran_ over to the garage door, unlocking it and pulling it open. He peered inside. Sam couldn't bear to see his reaction when he saw Cas was still dead, and put his head down on the steering wheel for a moment. But when he glanced up, cringing, Dean was just pulling the door wide open and gesturing Sam inside.

Sam pulled in. Sure enough, Cas was still lying there unmoving in the sheet and blanket. The water bottle and cell phone and note were untouched, of course. But Dean seemed unfazed, and he just popped the trunk open, pulling all the clothes out and spreading them out on the sides of the open trunk. He cut off the price tags off carefully; he pulled off all the little size stickers, and laced up the shoes, and unbuttoned the shirt and jacket, and shook everything out and looked it all over. "Okay," he said, when the clothes were all ready. Then Dean went back over to the Cas-shaped bundle in the sheet at the side of the garage, and he pulled the blanket off and flipped the sheet open.

To Sam's surprise, Dean just glanced briefly at the body and then began wrapping the sheet more tightly around it, saying, "I know just the right place. I was thinking, when we were driving. The spot where he likes to sit and play guitar. It'll be perfect. He'll know exactly where he is, and where the bunker is; and he likes it there anyway. Come on, let's get the shovels."

"What?" said Sam. "You think we should... bury him?" 

"Bury the _vessel_ , Sam," said Dean, walking over to the tool area to grab a couple of shovels. "The vessel won't last too much longer here," he said. "The rigor mortis is already leaving and that's a bad sign. I was thinking, three feet down'll be perfect." He turned and tossed a shovel to Sam.

"Three feet down?"

"Deep enough to keep animals from digging out the vessel, you know, but not so deep that it'll be hard to climb out. Six feet down was damn hard to climb through. Thought I was gonna suffocate."

Sam blinked. He knew, of course, that Dean had once been resurrected himself. (So had Sam, for that matter.) But Sam had always thought Dean had just magically appeared above ground fully resurrected, which was how it had been for Sam. Dean had never mentioned having to climb out of the grave.

"Three feet," said Dean again, turning and walking out the open bay doors. Sam followed, and they took the two shovels up to the little hill behind the bunker. Where Cas liked to go to play guitar.

They walked across the grassy meadow at the back of the bunker — an old cornfield that had long ago been overgrown with tall grasses and little saplings — following the little footpath that Cas had worn into the grasses over his summer of playing guitar out here. The little path led all the way across the meadow, up a small hill, and ended at a sort-of-level grassy spot on the side of the hill, under a handsome old maple tree that was turning red now in the fall. There was a peaceful view of the bunker and the fields nearby. Cas had set a little folding chair out here. Dean looked all around the chair and picked out a spot, paced out the standard grave dimensions, kicked some fallen red leaves out of the way and began to dig.

Three feet down. Sam was finally able to pitch in and help. They'd both dug a lot of graves in their time. Three feet was easy; it went rapidly.

Dean led Sam back to the bunker and insisted they both shower and change clothes yet again, saying, "We don't want to get the vessel dirty."

Then Dean went over to Cas's body, which was still lying there wrapped up in the sheet. Once again, as he had back at the warehouse, Dean tried to lift the body up by himself.

Sam tried to help.

"No, I got him this time," said Dean, perfectly cheerful. "Thanks though."

"Let me help."

"I GOT HIM, SAM," yelled Dean. "I GOT HIM. I'LL TAKE CARE OF HIM." Sam backed off a step as Dean tried to get Cas across his shoulders. Just as in the warehouse, it was a struggle. Human bodies were surprisingly hard to carry, and always Sam and Dean had helped each other carry bodies.

Even with Dad.

But not right now.

Dean finally got Cas's body, wrapped in its sheet, slung across his shoulder. Then he tried to lurch from his knees to his feet. This was hard for him, and for a few moments it looked like Dean just wasn't going to be able to stand up. Sam started to jump forward to try to help, as he had in the warehouse, but Dean snapped, "GET BACK," and then, in a quieter voice, "I got him, Sam."

Dean finally managed to struggle to his feet wobbily. Once upright he looked a little steadier. He took a few big breaths and then staggered out the door, Sam trailing closely behind.

Dean managed to carry Cas all the way around the bunker. And all the way across the little field, through Cas's little trail, which suddenly seemed miles long. And all the way up the little hill. He had to slow down a lot on the hill, taking little steps. Sam, following closely behind him, heard Dean gasping for breath. Sam had his hands half-raised, right behind Dean, still ready to help; but in the end all he could do was watch as his brother struggled slowly up that little hill, bearing his terrible burden.

Dean did it.

Dean reached the little clearing with the folding chair and the empty grave, and laid Cas down very carefully by the edge of the grave, panting.

He caught his breath, and then unfolded the sheet and took a critical look.

Sam could not bear to look at the face. That grimace, the sunken eyes... But Dean just gazed at it thoughtfully, his head tipped, his hands on his hips.

"I should wash it again," Dean said. "Just to be sure. Can you keep an eye on it for me?" He trotted away down the hill again, and Sam sank down on the little chair, gazing dully out over the field, watching Dean's little figure in the distance as Dean jogged all the way back to the bunker. A few minutes later Dean re-emerged once again with the damn bucket of water in one hand, and a bag of cleaning supplies - plus the bag of clothes. 

Dean insisted washing the whole body all over again by himself. He even washed Cas's hair again, and spent a long time patting it dry.

Then Dean wanted to dress Cas, all by himself again. Again Sam offered to help; again Dean snapped "I'll do it myself," and again Sam had to stand back, his hands in tight fists at his side. Dean managed to get the boxers and socks on by himself, but he ran into difficulties with the shirt. He had to ask Sam to help him, so Sam propped Cas's upper body up from behind while Dean carefully worked the first sleeve over Cas's arms.

Sam was sitting behind Cas now, holding him up. From this position, seeing only Cas's uninjured back, and the familiar dark hair and the head hanging down, it suddenly looked like Cas again, and Sam was suddenly having a lot of difficulty breathing. He had to close his eyes and just take a couple of long shaky breaths.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dean snapped, sounding a little irritated. "Help me with the other arm."

Sam bit his lip, managed to open his eyes again, and helped Dean work the shirt around Cas's back and get the other arm in its sleeve. Then Sam could let Cas down again, which he did very, very gently, trying to make sure Cas wouldn't bump his head, and then out of complete friggin' nowhere he suddenly burst into tears when he remembered it _really didn't matter_ if Cas bumped his head. Dean didn't even seem to notice that Sam was crying; he simply did up the buttons carefully, while Sam got himself under control.

Next was the pants (this again took both of them, and was another awful struggle). After the pants were on Dean paused and looked down at Cas for a long moment. Cas was fully dressed now in the dark-grey suit. He looked eerily now as if he'd been deliberately laid out for a funeral.

"Sam... I just realized... Sam..." said Dean. He lifted his eyes slowly to look at Sam; and there was such grief and despair in Dean's eyes that Sam's breath caught in his throat.

Dean said, looking absolutely destroyed, "I just realized we forgot the belt. Sam, we forgot the belt. What are we going to do?"

Sam blinked.

Dean stared down at the body, and  put both hands on his head, muttering, " _I forgot the belt,"_ as if forgetting the belt were the worst thing that had happened in the entire previous two days.

Sam said, numbly, "You could use mine," undoing his own belt as he spoke. "It's plain leather. Like his was." Sam pulled it out of the belt loops and held it out to Dean. Sam added, "It's got extra holes. It might fit him."

Dean stared at it a long moment. He nodded slowly, reaching out for the belt. "Maybe he won't mind?"

"I don't think he'll mind," said Sam.

"Maybe... maybe I can take him to JC Penney as soon as he's back and he can get the kind of belt he likes," said Dean.

"That's a great idea, Dean," said Sam. "He'll like that." So Dean knelt by Cas and began threading the belt through the belt loops, worked it under Cas's back, struggling a bit with the loops at the back, and then around the other side, and buckling it carefully.

"It does sort of fit. Thanks, Sam," said Dean.

"No problem," whispered Sam.

Dean put the shoes on, and laced them up.

Then he spent a long time with the tie, fussing over how tight to make it. "He usually had it sort of half-loosened, you know?" he said, tightening it slightly and then loosening it again. "I don't think he likes it super tight." He tightened it a tish more, and then loosened it again.

Dean was still fiddling with the tie when Sam said "He can adjust it when he's back, Dean."

"Yeah, I guess so," said Dean, looking a little bothered. "I just wanted to get it how he likes it. Okay. Can you help me with the coat?"

They got the trenchcoat on. This took some struggle because not only were there sleeves, but also it extended past his hips. Sam had to help pick Cas almost all the way up while Dean tugged the end of the coat into position, and then Sam set Cas down again.

Sam almost lost it again when he finally looked down.

For with that coat on, and the blue tie, now the "vessel" truly looked like Cas. It was Cas. And Cas was dead.

The sun was beginning to sink toward the horizon now; it was almost sunset again. It had been an entire day, and Cas had not returned. Cas was still gone.

Cas was still dead.

They both stood looking down at the body in silence for a moment. Sam lifted his eyes to look at Dean, and saw that Dean had that glassy look in his eyes again, that distant, vacant look, as if he weren't seeing anything at all.

"Dean?" Sam said hesitantly, stepping forward to put a hand on Dean's shoulder.

"Right," said Dean, suddenly snapping into motion. He folded the sheet carefully around Castiel, and said, "Hand it down to me."

Dean hopped down into the grave and reached his arms up to Sam, and Sam began to feel almost dizzy with the effort of trying to keep himself organized and on his feet and sane. Sam hauled Cas, now bundled up in the sheet again, over to Dean, and Dean grabbed Cas around the midsection and hauled him down into the grave. Then he folded the sheet again and spent a minute rearranging Cas's limbs till he was lying straight. He started climbing up out of the grave, leaving the sheet unfolded wide open.

"But, the sheet's open, Dean. His clothes will get all dirty," said Sam, feeling strangely bothered about this. He knew this was a ridiculous concern. The clothes didn't matter. Cas wasn't going to need them.

"It'll be a lot easier for him to get out of the grave if he doesn't have to struggle to get out of the sheet," explained Dean. "He'll clean up the clothes as soon as he's back. And if he's not at full power yet I'll wash the clothes for him." Dean had gotten up out of the grave now. He didn't pause for a moment and didn't even glance back down at Cas, but just grabbed one of the shovels and got to work, shoveling dirt back into the grave.

Sam couldn't move. Sam was standing at the foot of the grave staring down, and was absolutely transfixed by the sight of Castiel lying there in the grave, dressed in that ever-so-familiar outfit, complete with blue tie and trenchcoat and black shoes. So still and motionless. His face so strangely stiff and bruised, his eyes closed, but unmistakably now Castiel. Shovelfuls of dirt were landing on him now, landing on the excruciatingly familiar trenchcoat, on the blue tie, on the dark pants and the black shoes, on his black hair (still damp from when Dean had washed it), on his bruised face, on his mouth, on his hands, shovelful after shovelful, and Sam couldn't look away. He just stood there staring, till Cas was almost entirely covered up with dirt, till there was just the edge of one hand visible and part of his dark hair. Dean seemed to be aiming the shovelfuls now to cover him up, for the hand vanished in the next shovelful, and last of all the hair, and Castiel was entirely gone.

Sam finally was able to move, as if a spell had been broken. He was almost reeling with fatigue now, but went to get the other shovel, to try to help Dean.

Dean was just shoveling mechanically now, and didn't say a word as Sam joined him.

They filled in the rest of the grave. Dean patted the last of the loose dirt in place.

Then Dean knelt by the grave, Sam thought for a moment that he was going to say something, some kind of prayer of eulogy, but instead Dean dug around in his jacket pocket and pulled out...

... the water bottle, the cell phone and the little note. 

"Oh, Dean," Sam whispered, as he had before.

Dean didn't seem to hear him. He checked the battery on the phone, put the phone and note together in a little plastic bag, and put everything neatly together next to the head of the grave. He got back to his feet.

The sun had set. The light was beginning to fade. Sam cleared his throat and said, "Do you want to say anything?"

"What? Why? Sam, this is _just the vessel_ , haven't you been paying _any_ attention? He'll be back in a jiff. Right Cas?" Dean said, looking up at the sky. "Cas? Castiel? You're hearing me, right? You'll be right back, right? You're just kinda, getting yourself organized or something, right? Filling out the paperwork or whatever?"

There was no reply.

A soft breeze rustled the leaves of the big old maple overhead, and a scattering of red leaves came drifting down. A few of them landed on the grave. 

"Do you think he'll forgive me?" said Dean abruptly to Sam.

"For what?" Sam said, and then instantly realized this was a dangerous question.

Dean was silent a moment.

Then he said, his voice wavering, "For... forgetting the belt?" Dean paused, and then started to say, "And..."

Again Dean paused.

"And... the wrong shoes?" Dean finally said.

"Dean, of course he'll forgive you," said Sam. "He won't even care."

"Do you really think so? Do you think he'll forgive me?" Dean's voice was distinctly shaky now.

"He'll forgive you," said Sam, a sick certainty beginning to creep into his heart that Dean was talking about something else entirely. "I'm absolutely certain, Dean."

For a moment an expression flickered across Dean's face, something close to terror, something close to grief, and he gave a little choked gasp. Then he blinked, and the blank expression was back. Dean nodded once, firmly, and said, "I'll just take him to JC Penney right away. Soon as he gets back. I'll take him tomorrow." He picked up both shovels, tossed the washcloth and towels in the empty bucket, picked up the bucket and headed down the hill.

Sam lingered at the grave, terribly torn between staying close to Dean and wanting to stay at Castiel's grave.

 _Castiel's grave_. It seemed an impossibility.

Sam just stood staring at the grave now, the little heap of dirt. He realized they hadn't even put a grave marker on it, and for lack of anything else, Sam took his angel-blade out of the sheath in his boot, and stuck it at the head of the grave. He stood and looked down the hill. Dean was still in view, trudging through the dim twilight back toward the bunker, his head down, both shovels under one arm, the bucket hanging from his other hand. Sam hesitated a moment longer, turned back to the grave and whispered under his breath, "Castiel," but then couldn't think what else to say.

What kind of eulogy can a man give to a billion-year-old angel?

Sam finally said, "You were our friend," which seemed pathetically inadequate. It didn't come remotely close.

Sam glanced over his shoulder and saw that Dean was about to slip out of view around the corner of the bunker. All Sam could think of was to add, hastily, "Cas.... if you're out there somewhere, can you help Dean? If you can? I don't know what happened, but, please, please, Cas, if you can hear me, if you're still out there somewhere... _please,_ can you help me take care of Dean?"

There was no reply.

Of course there was no reply.

Sam blinked several times and wiped a hand over his face. He turned and hurried down the hill after Dean, thinking just _Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together._

 

* * *

_A/N - Okay, my tiny loyal crew of miserable readers, that's where it's going to pause for now. I have to circle back to other things for a while, but I'll keep working on this one and it'll start getting regular updates later in the summer. I should probably warn you that it'll go some strange AU places in the end (all canon-compliant, but with a bunch of head-canon I've dreamed up about angels) but I think it'll turn out cool. It'll all end up on my main account (NorthernSparrow). I'll post an alert here when I start updating it again._

_PS I actually looked up Misha Collins' wardrobe for this one. The original trenchcoat (not the S9-S10 one) did come from JC Penney - who knew? And, yeah, Cas's shoes are actually ankle boots; I never noticed._

__Thanks for your encouragement and please give me feedback on this chapter! Did it work? Are you miserable enough?_ _

 

__UPDATE Nov 28 2014 - No, I haven't abandoned this fic! It's even fully plotted! It's just that my other fic Flight took way longer to finish than I planned, and my job got very crazy, so I'm running months behind schedule, sorry! Realistically I will probably swing into action on Into The Fire in spring 2015, after catching up on several other projects that are in line ahead of it. I'll post an update here when I'm actively working on ITF again. thanks for your patience!_ _


	4. ANNOUNCEMENT - Into The Fire going live

_A/N - This is just an announcement, not a chapter. Into The Fire is at last going live! Starting tomorrow (June 4, 2015) I will begin posting the whole thing on my main account, NorthernSparrow, one chapter per week. So look up "NorthernSparrow" if you would like to get further updates on this fic and find out what happens to poor Dean. (and poor Sam, and poor Cas, and poor everyone.)_

_It'll start with the same 3 chapters as here (so, the first 3 weeks will just be those 3 chapters, one at a time) - but reworked a bit. The main reason it took me so long to move forward on this fic is really because the moment I saw the S9 finale, I realized that though I'd been thinking of this as an S8 fic, it is actually a better fit as an S10 fic. Even the "Darkness" bit of the S10 finale fits naturally into the fic. I ended up waiting all the way through S10 before deciding how exactly to recast it. I have finally decided it is going to be set a few months after the S10 finale, later that summer. So, I'm reworking it somewhat and you will see some changes because of that. (The bulk of the text in the first 3 chapters will be the same though.)_

_I hope you want to continue reading this story! And I hope the whole fic will feel worth it. It's going to be long and it is going to get weird. If you're interested, see you over on the NorthernSparrow account, starting tomorrow. :)_

_Thanks for all your support! - Sparrow_


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